by Rob McCarthy
I raised a fist to the center of the door and pounded loudly.
I moved to one side and listened. Footfalls. Another creak. But no answer.
I counted five. Then pounded hard again.
"Contract enforcement," I shouted. "Open the door!"
This time the floor creaked just opposite the door.
I held my badge to the peephole. "Open it!"
An unsteady woman's voice said, "Who is it?"
"Contract enforcement. Marichal Labs."
"Who?"
"Open it, or I will."
The lock clicked, and the knob turned. I got as far to one side as I could, in case she was ready for me.
Pale yellow light fell across my boot on the doorstep. The door stopped against its chain.
The woman’s voice said: "Who did you say?" An expensive-smelling perfume carried past me, along with the musty odor of the used-up house.
Again I raised the badge. "Madison Burke? You need to let me in. I’m with Marichal Labs."
Her voice took on a new tone, one that sounded almost hopeful: "Marichal?"
I tipped my head into the light and saw her face. It was Madison Burke all right. I had no doubt about that. Just like the squinting Mackenzie Dougal had said, Madison Burke looked like the picture of her daughter: Same auburn hair. Same ivory skin, only looser and rouged at the cheekbones. She had a bleary, tearstained face, but otherwise she looked far too prosperous to be living in Faith Junction. Her clothes were new and expensive, and her hair looked like it had been carefully styled at some point this evening. Although its’ current rough state said that troubled hours had passed since then.
"Madison Burke?" I said again.
She bit her lip and nodded. Then glanced over her shoulder. "I guess, if you're Marichal, then you better come in."
She unhooked the chain and stepped back. The door swung open on an empty living room.
All the little pillbox prefabs in the districts had the same layout: A living area straight inside the door, a pair of tiny bedrooms to the right, and a tiny bathroom between them. This one was no different, and it’s wear and grime said no more about the people who had lived her than the wear and grime I had seen in countless other district hovels.
Just past the living room, a galley kitchen was marked off by a counter that passed for a breakfast bar. Also identical to every other pillbox in the districts. Except that jutting from behind this breakfast bar, on the peeling vinyl floor, lay a long, slender pair of women's legs wearing high heels and black silk pants.
I made a quick sweep of the other rooms on my way to the kitchen. Everything about their setup said it was temporary, starting with the suitcases still unpacked on the bedroom floors. What little furniture there was looked rented and cheap. Madison Burke's clothes probably cost more than everything else in the house. I stuck my head in the bathroom. I had an eye open for any sign of a man. Although John Burke had said nothing about Madison having a boyfriend, I'd half expected to find one with her. But if a man lived here, I saw no evidence of it. Cosmetics and styling products cluttered the tiny sink and lined the back of the toilet. Women’s shoes were everywhere. Diet soda cans. It was just the two of them.
I took the foil pouch from my jacket and headed for the kitchen.
"I'm afraid my daughter’s not feeling well." Madison smiled at me sheepishly.
"Get away from her," I said.
As her picture advertised, Bailey Burke was a beautiful girl, strong bones and flawless skin. But right now her face was blue and her lips the color of ripe bruise. She and her mother were dressed roughly alike. Black silk pants and black heels, pale silk tops open at the throat, gold jewelry at their wrists, fingers, and ankles. They looked like a pair of affluent businesswomen, who happened also to be sisters. But with her toned body and youth, Bailey far surpassed her mother. You might have called her elegant, if she hadn’t looked near to a corpse.
I found a faint pulse at her neck and rolled her onto her side.
Her mother bent over me. "What can I do?"
I glanced up. Inside a black, satiny-looking bra Madison Burke’s cleavage gaped two feet from my face.
"You can stay away from me."
She stepped back, and a hand moved toward her pocket. I stopped what I was doing and drew the gun and pointed it at her.
"Put it on the counter,” I said. “And move away."
Her jeweled fingers gripped the edge of a handset. "I wasn't going to—"
"Shut up, and put it on the counter.”
She dropped the phone like it was hot and moved away with small steps. I should have cuffed her. But I didn't want to take the time.
"Just stand right there and don't move."
"Okay," she sassed.
I put away the gun and took out a near-field fob I carried that opened any port on any Marichal mod. I held the fob to Bailey’s port, and the lock beeped open. I gave the pouch of solution a few swift shakes then took the tamper seal between my teeth and ripped it off. I fitted the pouch nozzle to the port and twisted until heard the click. Immediately, the implant began to hum, sucking the contents from the pouch. When it finished, I unscrewed the nozzle, resealed the port, and set the girl upright. She’d been lying on the port, but I could see no sign of damage. I examined her more closely but I saw evidence of the countermeasure either. Wherever they’d put it, it was well hidden.
I gently massaged the area around her port—the way I had seen med techs do it. Then I pushed back an eyelid to check her pupil. As I did, a spasm rocked her body, and both eyes shot open. She choked, sputtered, and writhed sideways over the floor. Her eyes were open, but she was still unconscious, convulsing wildly. I wrapped my arms around her to restrain her, cradling her head and neck, then tried to get her upright again. I still didn’t know if she was breathing, or if all the motion was neuroelectrical. Then a deep noise came from her throat. Her hands grabbed my jacket, and she gasped, drawing gulps of air into her lungs. That was a good sign. Her eyes rolled, and her pale fingers clung to me as if she were dangling from the Boulin Bridge. Which in a way, she was.
She was conscious now. And when she tried to speak, her voice came out in a croak. "Wha—" she started, then broke into coughing.
Behind me, Madison Burke squealed at her. "Bailey? Bailey, darling!"
Bailey’s eyes squeezed shut, and then fluttered open. She stared into my face, her mouth slack.
"Who . . . ?" she said.
"Marichal sent me,” I said. “You just got an infusion. You were unconscious. But you're going to be okay."
Her eyelids slammed shut again. Another convulsion rocked her body. She pitched against me, the spasms shooting through her hands and feet.
"Don’t worry," I told her. “This is normal when you miss an infusion.”
I’d seen the same thing happen to plenty of others, and it was never fun. They got dizzy, they puked. Sometimes they even blacked out again. But as long as they got their solution, and eventually got back to Marichal and under a technician’s care, they usually didn't die.
I gently propped her upright again and tried to keep her that way. I didn't want her bending her neck too far. Crack the port seal and things would go downhill fast. Never mind the countermeasure. I tried to get her shoulders even with her hips, to ease any strain on her spinal column—all the stuff they taught us during the training that was mandatory for working mod retrieval. As far as I could tell, so far I’d done it all by the book. But I was no biomechanic. This part of the job always spooked me. And as soon as she could sit up without falling over, I would call Marichal and have them send a van.
But that was when an unexpected—and yet familiar—feeling passed across my chest. It was a feeling of friction. A light friction followed by a loss of tension in a strap across my back. That strap was the harness that held my shoulder holster. And that feeling was the feeling I felt every time I drew my gun.
I froze, and Bailey Burke now leaned back from me and hiccupped, her long legs
splayed alongside either side of me like a broken doll. She still stared at me with her big bleary brown eyes, their pupils still strangely dilated. But apparently she could see well enough. Well enough to be pointing my own gun in my face.
"Get…" She hiccupped again and swallowed with effort. "The fuck…away from me."
Across the little dining area, Madison Burke looked at me with wide eyes then at her daughter.
"Oh, good Bailey!" she said.
I watched Madison wipe her palms nervously against the front of her pants. Then I looked at the girl, struggling to move her legs, gradually straightening them in front of her.
Had her body not housed a significant Marichal capital investment that I was contractually bound to protect, I could have taken my gun and snapped her arm in the time it took her to drag that dry tongue across her peeling lips.
Coulda, shoulda.
Instead I repeated her mother’s observation: "Good Bailey."
"I said…" Her voice was a reedy rasp. "Get the fuck…away from me."
Then she squinted along the side of my gun, and with a trembling finger pushed its safety to the off position.
My hands rose over my head.
"Back it up," she whispered. "Keep on your knees."
I did what she said, edging away from the breakfast bar and over the dingy living room carpet, until she told me to stop.
"Bailey." Madison moved to her side. "Honey, give me the gun and I'll watch him."
The girl ignored her. With one hand she grabbed her pant leg and she tried to drag her knee underneath her, as if she intended to stand up. I could have told her that was a bad idea, but she was calling the shots now.
After a few seconds of strain, when her face was covered in sweat, she gave up.
Her mother moved toward her, and Bailey grunted, stopping Madison in her tracks.
Madison looked at her with pleading eyes. But Bailey shook her head.
At this, Madison stomped angrily past me and into the little bathroom. There was a tension between the two women, hard and urgent.
Keeping the gun on me, now Bailey reached an arm overhead and tried to pull herself up by the countertop. She got an inch off the ground before her body began to shake violently, and she slumped back onto the vinyl.
I had to at least warn her. Marichal must have told her about the countermeasure. It would have been on her consent form. But she obviously wasn’t taking it seriously.
"You know,” I said. “You better be careful—"
But before I could finish, something struck me hard between my legs. So hard everything went white. For a fraction of an instant, I saw it there in my crotch: Madison Burke’s foot, wearing her black high heels. She’d snuck up on me from behind. The pain dropped me to the carpet. My sight turned yellow, and nausea radiated from my groin through my body and into my head. I hadn't even seen her back there. But she'd kicked it through the goalposts.
The girl's voice sounded foggy and distant in my throbbing ears. "Now , tie him up."
"I’m not going near him," Madison said. "Do you see his hands? That means he's a fighter. But don’t worry, he’s tame now.”
I grunted, my eyes watering, sour bile creeping up my throat. She was talking about the tattoos on my hands. F on the right, D on the left, in Luchador type. They were my old cage tats, relics of my first career, when I earned a living fighting on pay-per-view. But that was long ago. And back then no woman in high-heeled shoes had ever kicked me in the nuts. I tried to focus my eyes. Then looked at Madison Burke and pictured my tattooed hands closing around her slender throat.
She went to the counter and scooped up her handset. "I’ll call them, now,” she said. “When they get here, they can do something with him."
I pushed myself back onto my knees.
Bailey was holding her stomach with one hand and the gun with the other. Obviously feeling sick.
Madison held the handset to her ear and paced the living room. Someone must have picked up on the other end because she shouted jubilantly: "Yes, yes, it is! And everything’s okay, now!"
Bailey slumped against the breakfast bar and looked at her mother with hatred.
"Well, because things have changed," Madison said. "Because my daughter is better. She's totally fine, in fact! So you should come, right now."
Bailey's breathing sounded labored. She let herself slide down the side of the breakfast bar until she could rest one elbow against the floor. That had to be a bad position for both the graft and the countermeasure. She closed her eyes and grimaced.
"No, of course not!" Madison said. "Why would you think that? Well, she's sitting right here—"
"Mother!" Bailey said in a growl. "Give me the phone."
"Well, then I will," Madison said to the person on the other end. "If you'll just hold on a minute, I’ll put her on." She crossed the room and tried to sound tough: "Because Bailey says she wants to talk to you!"
She squatted beside her daughter and whisper-shouted: "Tell them about the solution!" Then pressed the handset to her daughter's sweaty face. "Tell them you're okay!"
Bailey scowled up at her. Her breath came haltingly through clenched teeth, her nostrils flaring. She tried to speak but couldn't.
"Bailey…" Madison said. “Hurry!”
A bead of sweat ran down Bailey's face. She was marshaling her strength. But instead of taking the phone she leaned away and said, "Turn…on…the fucking…video."
"Oh!" Madison said, as if she hadn’t thought of that. But she fumbled with the handset, and it fell from her hands and bounced over the carpet, toward me.
Bailey snorted and snatched up the phone herself, a dangerous action that made pain flash across her face.
Madison shouted at the phone: "Just a minute!" Her voice sounding as if she wanted the milkman to wait while she fetched her empties.
Bailey reached behind her head and dragged her long hair from the back of her neck. Then she held the handset so that its camera could video the port.
"Are you sure they can see it?" Madison said.
After a few seconds of moving the camera back and forth, Bailey let go her hair and sagged against the wall, panting. She still held my gun in her hand, and she used its muzzle to nudge a sweaty strand of hair from her mouth.
"Same address," she said into the phone. I made out the distant sound of a reply on the other end. "That’s right,” she said. “Ten minutes. Or I make another call."
Madison's eyes went wide. "Bailey!" she said.
The girl ignored her and continued into the phone. "No,” she said. “You will do what I say. And you know why: Because I’m the prototype. Which means there is one of me. And plenty of you. Ten minutes.”
For an instant she moved the handset away from her face. She belched and spat on the floor. The nausea had to be kicking in. Then she got back on the phone: "And remember: I'm no district whore who can't do the math. Bring the amount me agreed on. Or I make another call." She tapped the screen, then sagged against the wall.
Either Bailey Burke was a good actor, or she was tougher than she looked. She was definitely tougher than her parents. And smarter. But she wasn't as smart as she thought she was.
"You just sold yourself to a chop shop," I said.
Madison pointed at me. "Bailey, you didn't tell them about him!"
But the girl ignored her, just as she ignored me, and let her eyes half close.
"Bailey, we have to call them back. We have to ask what to do about him!" Madison watched me anxiously.
I showed her a smile.
Bailey again turned her head to one side and spat.
“Why don’t you give me the phone, dear, and I’ll call them back,” Madison said.
"Do that," Bailey whispered. "And I will shoot you."
Madison's mouth fell open. Her eyes flashed at me and then at Bailey, and her voice sharpened. "Bailey, I do not appreciate you talking to me that way."
Bailey’s eyes rolled toward her. “Really? Do you appreciate thi
s? You can leave now."
Madison stared at her. Her face a still image of disbelief.
Bailey cocked one eyebrow toward the door. Then lightly wagged the gun barrel, as if nudging the older woman along.
Madison forced a smile across her face. "Oh, but you don't mean that, sweetheart." She softened her voice. "Sweetheart, I'm not going anywhere. We have to finish this, and then I—"
Bailey shook her head. "No, not you."
"Sweetheart…"
She pointed at the door. "Go!"
"But, Bailey, you're not making any sense!"
"You never make any sense. Now get the hell out of here. Before I shoot you." Her lips peeled back from her teeth. Her breath came haltingly.
"Oh, honestly, this is enough." Madison moved toward her.
The sweat gleamed on Bailey's forehead, a droplet clinging to the tip of her fine nose. Her voice was a growl through gritted teeth. But a weak one. "Get…out!"
Madison clapped a hand over her mouth, her face alternating between frustration, humiliation, rage, and despair.
I kept my mouth shut.
"Go," Bailey said again.
But Madison didn't go. Instead she got down on her knees and edged toward her daughter.
Bailey shied away, trying to sit up straighter.
"Bailey, these people made a deal with me. Not you."
The girl tried to laugh. "Is that your problem, mother, the contract? Well, there's an acer right behind you. Maybe he can help."
Madison looked at me with hatred. "Sweetheart, did you think I truly expected half of this money? Is that what this is about? Darling, you know I only want to help you. That’s all I want to do. Help my baby. Because you have to think about afterward. That’s when you’re going to need me. You’re going to need help. Remember? They told us that."
Bailey spat onto the carpet again. Her hands trembled, as if the gun were getting heavy.
"Honey…" Madison edged over the carpet.
"Don't you come any closer!" But the tremors were spreading through Bailey’s body. Her face spasmed. Then her head wrenched sideways, her jaws sprang open, and she vomited onto the floor. Sweat poured down her ghost-white face. She groaned, her body convulsed, and again she vomited.